Local Resources

Tomorrow will be the start of Autumn quarter at Ohio State and the first meeting of this year’s freshman seminar, “Analyzing the Appeal of Manga.” I posted the syllabus as a page on this blog. This will be the sixth time I teach this course. This year’s seminar is quite different from the previous ones, […]

Japanese Book News No. 63 (Spring 2010) has an article, Iguana Girl Turns Manga Legend, by Kawakatsu Miki about the famous shojo mangaka, Hagio Moto. The Ohio State University Libraries has strong holdings of Hagio Moto’s works. So far not much has been translated into English — we have A, A´ = A, A prime. […]

October 13th’s Lantern carried an article by Katie Vitek about the Analyzing the Appeal of Manga Club (AAMC):OSU Student Club Explores Graphic Novels October 28th’s Lantern has another article by Katie Vitek about the Cosplay Club:OSU Students Play Big Roles in Cosplay Club I serve as faculty adviser for both clubs. AAMC was initiated by […]

A touring exhibit on the subject of “My August 15th” sponsored by the Nanjing Memorial Museum is getting quite a bit of attention. China Daily carried an article, “Japanese cartoonists hold antiwar exhibition in China.” The web site for the My August 15th Society (私の八月十五日の会 / 日本漫画事務局) contains more information, including a list of cartoonists […]

There’s an interesting discussion over at Manga Village News about the definition of manga. What is Manga? Ever since Tokyopop created their line of American created titles, dubbed OEL (Original English Language) manga, fans have been debating if they should be called manga. What is manga? Is it a style, or set of drawing conventions? […]

This year’s manga seminar just ended. As in past years, it seems like we were just getting into a stride. The end came too soon. Well all I can do at this point is start thinking about next year’s course. I asked the students for input and got some great ideas. One of the questions […]

Helen McCarthy was in Kuala Lumpur recently to give a talk about Tezuka Osamu. In KL she was interviewed by Elizabeth Tai of the Malaysia Star who wrote an article — Veteran Otaku: How did an English lady get hooked on a Japanese phenomenon some three decades ago? OCLC’s new “Worldcat Identities” provides an overview […]

Hey! I’ll be teaching a course in spring quarter on “What is the Global Information Society?” with my colleague, Miriam Conteh-Morgan. I’ve just written a post about it on my Japanese Studies blog — Spring Qtr: What Is the Global Information Society? Syllabus is here: http://is.gd/wHrp Manga is a good example, I think, of how […]

Today’s Wall Street Journal has a front page article about Japanese anime tourists visiting the Washinomiya Shrine in Washimiya, Saitama Prefecture, because of its association with Lucky Star (らき★すた) by Yoshimizu Kagami (美水 かがみ). This caught my attention because Saitama is Ohio’s sister state in Japan!